The present invention relates in general to an apparatus and method for supplying articles from an array within a carton and, more particularly, to such apparatus and method for transferring plural articles from a shipping carton to a receptacle from which such plural articles are orderly removed therefrom, e.g., in groups, row-by-row.
In the container filling industry, there frequently arises the problem of transferring fragile cylindrical containers such as bottles, jars, ampules, collapsable tubes or the like from a shipping carton of generally cardboard construction, where they are often arranged in an orderly array, to a machine for further processing. By "machine for further processing" is meant, for example, packaging machines, automatic sealing machines, automatic filling machines, control instruments used to test for the presence of foreign bodies in the container or the like. The reliability of such machines, including the economics of their operation, is to a large extent determined by the method employed for delivering the containers satisfactorily to them from their shipping cartons at a rate compatible with the operating rate of such machines. If the containers are broken, deformed or otherwise damaged while being supplied to such machines, the machine often gets jammed or damaged resulting in very laborious and time-consuming machine repair along with its associated repair costs. In addition, the inability to supply containers to these machines at a compatible rate often results in such machines remaining idle and unproductive while additional containers are being removed from their shipping cartons.
The apparatus and method of the present invention is adapted in one aspect for use in association with known filling and sealing machines for collapsable tubes, for example, toothpaste tubes, medicine tubes, paint tubes or the like. Today, most such collapsable tubes are manufactured from either a soft metal or laminated plastic cylindrical tube of uniform diameter as opposed to the more rigid metal tubes of the prior art. In operation of such filling and sealing machines, it is first required that the tubes be removed from their shipping cartons and supplied to such machines at a compatible rate. Such tubes were previously removed from their shipping carton by an apparatus having groups of mechanical fingers which were inserted into the interior of each tube whereby vacuum or other mechanical means would hold the tube to each finger. The tubes were then removed from the shipping carton and moved by the mechanical fingers to an appropriate conveying location or supply hopper for the machine.
The problems associated with such prior art apparatus incorporating groups of mechanical fingers have been multi-fold. Specifically, the inserting of a finger component into the interior of the tube often resulted in contamination of the tube which was not desirable when filling the tube with such things as medicine and the like. Further, such prior art apparatus often required that the shipping cartons have the tubes separated by cardboard inserts which was an additional expense to be borne by the user of such tubes. Still further, the use of such mechanical fingers necessitated that the tubes be manufactured from materials which would provide such tubes with a fairly stiff sidewall to withstand the force exerted by such fingers and of uniform cross-section to allow for the easy insertion of the fingers. Often, the misalignment of any finger with a tube would result in the damaging of the mouth of such tube causing the failure of such tube to be removed from the shipping carton or rendering the mouth unsuitable for the subsequent filling operation.
As noted, such tubes today have been fabricated out of soft metals and other materials such as laminated plastic and the like. This tube construction results in such tubes being of substantial weaker sidewall strength such that the tubes are often found to have a non-uniform cross-section thereby further rendering such tubes unsuitable for use with these mechanical fingers. Thus, it is apparent that the use of such prior art apparatus incorporating mechanical fingers has resulted in great difficulty when attempting to remove these new types of tubes from their shipping carton by the insertion of such fingers therein. In this regard, it has been common that such tubes were manually removed from their shipping carton and placed into the machine resulting in great labor cost.
As a result, one prior art apparatus designed to accomodate the use of such tubes of soft metal or laminated plastic requires the providing of a specially constructed shipping carton for such tubes having a slot on its bottom side. The shipping carton having such a slot is placed into a station of the apparatus where a horizontally moving blade would enter the slot so as to push one row of tubes out the opposite side of the carton into the machine supply hopper or onto a conveyor. However, such prior art apparatus and method has not had commercial acceptance due to the requirement that the shipping cartons for such tubes be specially constructed with such a slot, requiring additional expense which the user of such tubes has often desired not to bear.
Accordingly, it can be appreciated that there is an unsolved need for an apparatus and method for supplying plural articles provided in an array in a shipping carton without injury or damage to such articles, which apparatus and method is specifically adapted for use in association with high speed automatic continuous processing machines.